The Australian Elsina Wainwright: Give stretched police an overseas
break

February 05, 2004

THE Australian Government's announcement on Monday that it would
establish an international deployment group of 500 personnel within the
Australian Federal Police makes a great deal of sense. Increasingly, those
on the front-line of maintaining our security abroad wear blue uniforms,
not green. More than 7per cent of AFP personnel are on overseas
deployments. That is nearly twice the percentage of the Australian Defence
Force - an organisation specifically designed for such deployments - which
stands at less than 4 per cent.

In a paper the Australian Strategic Policy Institute releases today, we
propose a similar enhancement of the AFP's international policing
capability. Put simply, the police should be given the right tools to do
the job that they keep being asked to do.

Police involvement in peace and capacity-building operations is not new
- AFP personnel have been part of the UN mission in Cyprus since 1964. But
their level of involvement in such operations has risen sharply in recent
years.

In 1999, AFP personnel were deployed to East Timor as part of the UN
assistance mission. AFP and state and territory police continue to play a
valuable role in the UN mission in East Timor.

In 2003, the AFP's international commitments grew significantly with
the police-led assistance mission in the Solomon Islands. About 200 AFP
personnel are in the Solomons. They have helped restore law and order to
that once stricken state and are pursuing criminal investigations and
assisting with the rebuilding of the Royal Solomon Islands Police.

And this year will likely see the biggest overseas operation yet -- the
planned deployment of 230 AFP and state and territory police to Papua New
Guinea as part of Australia's package to help PNG address its
law-and-order and governance challenges.

In addition to these peace and capacity-building operations, the AFP
has its domestic responsibilities, including combating fraud and drug
crime and policing in the ACT. Its counter-terrorism and transnational
crime investigation duties have also expanded, and a team of AFP and state
and territory police played a crucial role in the Bali bombing
investigation.

The result of this intense activity is an AFP that has been greatly
stretched. The AFP is not organised or resourced for large and sustained
overseas deployments. The Government has provided separate tied funds for
operations such as the Solomon Islands mission. This has inhibited the
AFP's long-term planning capacity, and means it has to respond to demands
on an ad hoc basis as they arise.

Although the AFP has grown in terms of personnel and budget over the
past few years, the demands upon it have risen faster. And four long-term
trends suggest that these demands will continue.

First, domestic situations in a number of neighbouring states have
deteriorated, in particular in the Solomons and PNG. Second, awareness has
increased that this deterioration presents a security challenge to
Australia and other states in the region. Third, there has been a growing
appreciation that Australia has an obligation to help its smaller
neighbours arrest their internal decline and have better, more prosperous
futures.

And fourth, there has been increasing worldwide acceptance of
international peacekeeping and state-building operations in disrupted or
post-conflict states, as the reconstruction efforts in Bosnia, Kosovo and
East Timor attest. Clearly, police deployments help to re-establish the
rule of law in shattered communities, pursue criminal investigations and
rebuild local police forces so they can do the job themselves. These are
crucial tasks. And they differ from and complement the role of the
military in such operations, which is to establish control and keep
warring parties apart.

There is a clear need to expand the AFP's capacity for overseas
deployments, so that it can more sustainably perform the tasks it has and
prepare for ones that might arise. The establishment of an international
deployment group should be accompanied by a broader strategic review of
the AFP's future tasks and needs. This will help the AFP to keep
fulfilling its increased role.

Of course, police assistance operations are just part of broader
state-building support, which includes comprehensive aid, development and
governance programs.

The aim of such support is to help other states become more stable and
prosperous. The consent of and good relations with the partner governments
- and the acceptance of the broader region - are critical to such policing
deployments.

And the participation of the broader region - as in the Solomon Islands
mission - is optimal.

Elsina Wainwright is program director at the Australian Strategic
Policy Institute. These are her personal views. The ASPI's strategic
insight, Police Join the Front-line: Building Australia's International
Policing Capability, is released today.